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Barbara Hall
Barbara Hall (September 9, 1919 - April 28, 2014), legal name at death Barbara Fiske Calhoun, was an American comic book artist best known for her work on the Fiction House features "Girl Commandos" and "Pat Parker, War Nurse" during the Golden Age of Comics Life and Career Hall was born Isabelle Daniel Hall in Tucson, Arizona, into an old Southern family. Her ancestors had fought the British during the Revolutionary War, and later fought on the Southern side in the American Civil War. She studied painting in Los Angeles, moving to New York City in 1940. She showed her portfolio to Harvey Comics in 1941, and was hired to draw the comic Black Cat. Her next strip was Girl Commandos, about an international team of Nazi-fighting women. This comic was developed from Pat Parker, War Nurse, about a "freelance fighter for freedom." When stationed in India, this nurse recruited a British nurse, an American radio operator, a Soviet photographer, and a Chinese patriot. Hall continued this strip until 1943. Girl Commandos was taken over by Jill Elgin. On January 8, 1946, she married writer and playwright Irving Fiske and became Barbara Hall Fiske. She also drew and appears to have created a comic called "The Blonde Bombshell,"featuring a multi-talented young crimefighter named Honey Blake, with a plump sidekick reporter named Slapso. It is possible that Irving Fiske helped write some of these stories. Hall continued her art career as a tempera and pastel painter. Together with her husband, she began an alternative living group/artists and writers' colony in Rochester, Vermont, called Quarry Hill. (Later it became known as the Quarry Hill Creative Center.) She and Irving Fiske had two children, Isabella (Ladybelle) and William. In the Sixties, through her daughter, Ladybelle, she met and became friends with some of the well-known underground cartoonists, especially Trina Robbins and Art Spiegelman. Ladybelle met Art Spiegelman in 1966 through Trina Robbins and also, concurrently, through a group of Spiegelman's fellow-students at the State University of New York at Binghamton. In 1978, Ladybelle, Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, and some other Quarry Hill residents created Top-Drawer Rubber Stamp Company, which featured art by Robert Crumb, Trina Robbins, Aline Kinsky, Diane Noomin, Spiegelman and many other cartoonists and artists. This hand-made art rubber stamp company provided employment for several Quarry Hill residents for a time. Barbara Hall Fiske designed several images for Top-Drawer including angels, an image of William Blake (Quarry Hill's favorite poet and artist), and more. Hall divorced Fiske in the 1970s, created Lyman Hall, Inc. (after a collateral ancestor who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence) to run the Quarry Hill property, and took the name Barbara Fiske Calhoun after her second marriage in the 1990s.Lambiek profile Until 2013, she resided at Quarry Hill with her family. Barbara Hall Calhoun died on April 28, 2014 around 8:45 AM in a nursing home in White River Junction, Vermont, near The Center For Cartoon Studies. Her daughter Ladybelle and son in law Brion were with her for the last days of her life. Until she died, her primary interest remained drawing and painting. "Art is prayer," she frequently said. She had a Quaker funeral, and her ashes were scattered at Quarry Hill.Isabelle (Barbara) Hall Fiske Calhoun obituary, The Herald. Published 1 May 2014. Accessed 8 Dec 2017. External Sites *Quarry Hill Creative Center blog *Quarry Hill on Facebook Sources Category:American creators Category:Golden Age Category:Artists Category:Quaker creators Category:1919 Births Category:2014 Deaths